Quick-thinking Houston residents saved a man’s life on August 29, as they formed a human chain and freed him from his SUV just before floodwaters swept it away. This video shows at least 17 people joining hands to reach the man in the submerged car, next to Interstate 10 in Jacinto City. The man was rescued from the vehicle by a group of men and brought to safety. Credit: Facebook/Stephanie N Edward Mata via Storyful

August 31st 2017

6 months ago

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Rescuers form a human chain to rescue a man stranded in floodwaters. Picture: StoryfulSource:Supplied

MORE than 20 people have formed a human chain to stage an incredible rescue of an elderly man dragged away by floodwaters in Houston.

Local residents were driving cautiously along Houston’s flood-hit Interstate 10 when the dangerous waters pulled the man’s SUV off the road.

Incredible footage then show people joining hands and wading chest deep into the waters to save the man stuck in the cabin of his truck.

Rescuers form a human chain to reach the stranded man. Picture: StoryfulSource:Supplied

They struggled to free the man from the cabin of his truck in the swirling waters. Picture: StoryfulSource:Supplied

The man was eventually rescued from the floodwaters. Picture: StoryfulSource:Supplied

As the truck continues to get pulled away by the strength of the moving water, three men eventually manage to wrench open the driver’s door of the truck.

The elderly man is then carried away from danger.

Maritza Castillo and her husband told CNN, how the man’s truck was stalled in traffic before it was pulled away by the floods.

“My heart started beating fast,” Castillo said.

“Somebody said, ‘Let’s form a chain.’”

Castillo said she and her husband and dozens of other drivers jumped out of their cars to help.

They all linked arms and then made their way to the man’s truck.

She said the man was taken to hospital after the rescue and reunited with his son.

Footage from the air shows the devasation around Lake Houston. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

A woman is evacuated on a canoe as people escape flood waters in Lakeside Estate in Houston. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

Earlier, a CNN reporter abandoned his live cross to save the life of a man whose truck was sinking into a flooded ravine in Texas, as Harvey’s storm continues to hit.

CNN correspondent Drew Griffin and his crew rushed to rescue Jerry Sumrall of Winnie, Texas, who accidentally drove his truck into treacherous floodwaters in Beaumont, Texas.

“We just literally rescued this guy out,” said Griffin, who missed his live shot to help.

He was reporting from the Texas city east of Houston about the widespread flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Griffin alternated between telling “Newsroom” anchor John Berman what the situation looked like and ensuring the driver, Jerry Sumrall of Winnie, Texas, wasn’t hurt.

“Come on, sir, let’s get you up and into the dry,” Griffin said to Sumrall. “How are you doing? Lord have mercy, this is too much of a time for you to be interviewed right now. Are you doing all right? Your heart doing OK? You’re alive, sir. You’re alive.”

Griffin told Berman, “There was no time to call 911. He was floating down this ravine. That’s his truck right behind me.”

Tropical Storm Harvey made a second landfall on August 30, bringing heavy rain and flooding to southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana, the National Weather Service said. Video shows flooding in Beaumont, Texas, one of the areas affected by flooding. Local media reported that a woman, who was carrying a small child through floodwater, became the first fatality in the area as a result of the flooding. Credit: Facebook/Mark Berman via Storyful

August 31st 2017

6 months ago

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Rescuers pulled them into the boat just before they would have gone under a railroad trestle where the water was so high that the boat could not have followed.

First responders lifted the child from her mother’s body and tried to revive the woman, but she never regained consciousness.

The child was taken to a hospital in Beaumont and was expected to be released on Wednesday.

Officer Carol Riley said the girl was doing “very well” and was chatty.

“Everybody at the hospital and the officers just fell in love with her,” he said.

There are more than 32,000 people in shelters across Texas as Harvey continues drenching the state’s Gulf Coast.

Governor Greg Abbott says Texas also has an additional 30,000 beds “available as needed” for those who fled or are still fleeing floodwaters associated with the storm.

At a news conference in Austin, Mr Abbott said there are still about 107,000 power outages statewide, down from nearly 140,000 over the weekend.

He refused to speculate on the final costs of the storm in terms of property damage. But he suggested that the scope of destruction far exceeded that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, meaning the financial impact will likely be far greater than both.

In Houston, city officials were preparing to temporarily house about 19,000 people, with thousands more expected to flee. More than 50,000 homes had suffered flood damage — but the tally is certain to rise.

HIGHWAY TURNS INTO OCEAN

A Texas highway was transformed into an ocean — complete with whitecaps and waves during Tropical Storm Harvey.

Some dramatic shots snapped on Tuesday show Interstate 10, located south of Beaumont, completely submerged in choppy waters.

The images were captured by Logan Wheat, who’d set off on a boat to round up cattle.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says the van was in about three metres of muddy water in Green’s Bayou in northeast Houston. He said the bodies of two adults could be seen in the front seat but that if the four children’s bodies are inside they are obscured because of the water conditions and the angle of the vehicle.

Texas teen Devy Saldivar and her family died in the floodwaters. Picture: Facebook/Devy SaldivarSource:Supplied

Authorities are trying to decide whether dive team members will retrieve the bodies or if it would be safer to pull the van from the treacherous water first.

Samuel Saldivar told deputies he was in his brother’s van rescuing his parents and relatives from their flooded home on Sunday when the van was tossed by a strong current into the bayou as it crossed a bridge. He escaped through a window but the others were trapped.

One of the victims, 16-year-old Devy Saldivar, wrote on Facebook hours before her death: “No sleep & anxiety, please let this pass sooner.”

Tropical Storm Harvey made an unwelcome return to a devastated region overnight — this time hitting Louisiana, a state that was ravaged by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

The relentless storm made landfall just west of the town of Cameron, according to the National Hurricane Centre, with “flooding rains” drenching parts of southeastern Texas and neighbouring southwestern Louisiana.

Harvey is expected to produce as much as 25 more centimetres of rain to an area about 128 kilometres east of the paralysed city of Houston as well as western Louisiana.

It is projected to weaken into a tropic depression by Wednesday night as it slogs inland to the northeast, the National Hurricane Centre said.

Kids ride an ATV in a street flooded by Tropical Storm Harvey, in the Clearfield Farm subdivision in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Picture: AP.Source:AP

Arkansas, Tennessee and parts of Missouri are on alert for Harvey flooding in the next couple of days.

“Once we get this thing inland during the day, it’s the end of the beginning,” said National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Dennis Feltgen. “Texas is going to get a chance to finally dry out as this system pulls out.”

But Mr Feltgen cautioned: “We’re not done with this. There’s still an awful lot of real estate and a lot of people who are going to feel the impacts of the storm.”

Harvey, swirling for the past few days off Texas and Louisiana, has inundated the region. Picture: AFP.Source:AFP

Low-lying New Orleans was still bracing for the storm, which made landfall a day after the 12-year anniversary of Katrina. That hurricane ravaged the Crescent City — killing 1,00 people and causing an estimated $US108 billion ($135 billion) in damage.

The National Weather Service said a heavy rain threat remained over southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi and would continue through to Thursday.

A girl sorts toiletries at a shelter for volunteer rescue workers set up at the Fairfield Baptist Church student building in Cypress, Texas. Picture: AFP.Source:AFP